Registrován: Nov 2012
Příspěvků: 150 

Registrován: May 2013
Příspěvků: 9  

Hello,

Firstly, thanks for your great work. I am curious about this project, the strains that should be quick by being F1s of normal and AF strains and by extension about the genetics behind the AF magic.

The opinions about this vary wildly. Most people on internets I have read from regard the matter as if it was a question of a trait based on multiple independent genes. Few AFs pop up in F2 and the trait needs to be stabilized to breed true. In principle. But from a book I have read the trait is considered being based on a single homozygous recessive pair, averaging 25% AF plants in F2, the most classic ratio. Also wikipedia says this is the case.
If so, the point of your hybrids is unclear to me. Is it that apart from AFs being AFs, they also carry "unnecessary" genes for early flowering start? Possibly from ruderalis populations of mixed AFs and very early flowering photosensitive plants?

But the question is probably more complicated. Even wiki says, that F3 of selected AFs is unstable for AF. But if more genes were playing this game, wouldn't the ratio of F2 divisions be clearly different from 25%? Even single dominant gene involved should be obvious. Furthermore, if there is a problem of heterozygous pairs bringing recessive genes that prevent/do not support AF in later generations, wouldn't the soution be in family tests rather than in stabilization? It certainly is not a quantitative trait after all.

There are other possible explanations of the irregularities, stuff I do not know that much about, such as gene linkage.
The basic principles of heredity seem clear and simple, but to me the amount of exceptions and complication make breeding a true art.

I any case, I would love to hear more about the involved hereditary mechanics from an insider, especially about this interesting project.

Best of luck and thanks in advance for your answers.

Registrován: Nov 2012
Příspěvků: 150 

Hi Rebar, thanks for posting your question. I wil try to ask my colleagues because I believe they will give me a better answer than I can give you... I must say you are the only one in 12 forums who really took time to elaborate an interesting question about this project, so thank you for that.

be back as soon as i can with an answer.

Cheers!
Jaypp

Registrován: May 2013
Příspěvků: 9  

Not trying to rush you, just answer when you get to it. I have a different question though, if I may.

I wonder how a breeders in general mainain uniformity of a population from seeds they sell. It seems that cannabis is different than vegetable seed production in this regard.

I can understand producing f1 hybrids. But I wonder, if the parents are from a single clone, year by year, or from a heavily inbred lines. In theory, continuing down, inbreeding a line should give better results year by year, as far as uniformity is an issue.

What I do not get is, how you maintain, or create a stable strain. You cannot continue inbreeding ad infinitum, obviously, since cannabis is outcrossing dioecious. But when strains are discussed, usually one mythical parent is mentioned, a beautifull plant that had that "something special"

But creating a strain on a foundation of one plant - isn't that a sure source of problems in latter generations (in outcrossers)? Again - in general, how breeders maintain genetic variability in their projects?

With outcrossers, i suppose the way would be a wide cross, or complex cross, to few lines, inbreeding for similar fenotypes and reducing harmfull recesive genes, to a syntetic population where we mix all this, to several generations of rouging, to production combined with continued rouging.
Anything else seems fated to fuck up the vitality of latter gen's. Am I mistaken? Or is this the reason so many people opt for new strains?
There is also the option to get together with other breeder and rejuvenate a wilting classic strain by crossing the different lines each one is working on.
Which would be cool, but I do not know how the general public would accept this.

After all, how do I even know, if the seeds I am getting are technically f1, or stabilized?

I am well aware, that giving information on this topic can harm your financial interests. I would not blame you, if you tried to dodge the questions. But after all, there are staple strains considered the backbone of breeding progress in cannabis and if their stability is illusory, I think we should all know, worry and if possible do something.

Registrován: Nov 2011
Příspěvků: 451 

Hi Rebar!

As Jaypp first said we just collaborate with the seedbank moderating their forums and we have no deep knowledge on how the procedures work, neither we have direct contact with the breeders. So it's always a bit hard to answer this kind of questions without runing the risk of saying something that could be not right, but I'll try and share my personal opinion with you.

First of all I don't think this is the right thread for us to discuss about the questions you're pointing out as F1 Fast Versions should not be considered as the "traditional" F1's that we are used to and that you are talking about.

Sweet Seeds does not work with F1's in the way you comment. Every strain from the Sweet Seeds catalog is done from clone. I mean, the Sweet Seeds bank of mothers has elite clones from every strain listed in the catalog and it happens that to produce seeds the method used is feminization with STS (sex reverhsal using Silver ThioSulfate), which means that every non-auto strain from the catalog are S1's.

The exception to the S1's I'm talking about is this new product that Sweet Seeds released in 2013. And this product, the F1 Fast Versions, is not a "traditional" F1. This product was born when the Sweet Seeds breeders were breeding new autoflowering strains and, by mistake, a whole batch of an auto strain (Sweet Special Auto, to be more specific) turned out to originate non-autoflowering plants.

The whole batch had to be removed from the market but for some it was too late and they already had germinated the seeds and had the plants growing. These plants ended up being true champions as they managed to keep all the good traits that they were expected to have but, most of all, they were really very, very fast. They were as fast as autos but they were photoperiod strains, only flowering when changed to 12/12, which means that the grower could select and keep mothers.

Plants turned out to be so easy to grow and with a very fast flowering, like 5/6 weeks after changing to 12/12, with good production and with an excellent quality to the final product that they ended up getting lots of fame around here in Spain and lots of growers started to exchange clones with each other. The Sweet Special Auto from the problematic batch that turned out to be non-autos ended up being a huge success as for some growers it was like being able to keep mothers of autoflowering plants.

Aware of the error our breeders knew how to do it again and so they decided that it would be interesting to do it again but with other strains. So they did it also with Cream Caramel, Green Poison and Sweet Cheese. But for this they used the elite clones from Cream Caramel, Green Poison and Sweet Cheese that are kept in the Sweet Seeds bank of mothers.

The elite clones were crossed with a selection of seeds from autoflowering plants but in a way that the final product (that they call F1's, although in my opinion it's not the traditional F1 or at least it's not produced/bred the same way), they end up getting all the desirable traits except for the autoflowering capacity/characteristic. They are as fast as autos but they are not autos and they don't get any undesirable trait from the autoflowering genes, just the ability to "accelerate" flowering and nothing else.

For being a cross between an elite clone and a selection of seeds they call it F1's. Although I think the "F1" terminology is used mainly to leave it very clear to the growers/clients that they are not autoflowering plants. If they called it Green Poison Fast Version most of the clients would presume they were autos, hence the "F1" terminology.

So, that being said, it turns out that most of the questions you've made do not apply neither to these F1 Fast Version strains and neither to the way how the Sweet Seeds breeders work. Anyway if there's any question that you've made and that you think that you'd like to know my personal opinion about it please let me know and I'll be pleased to share my opinion (if I have one, hehe).

Hope this helps and I also hope that you understand most of the subjects I've tried to tell you about. I'm not a native speaker and so somethings may turn out to be a bit difficult to understand, I'm pretty aware of that.

About your worries regarding stability I think that they are discarded by the fact that most of the "genes" used to produce this product (the F1 fast versions) come from perfectly stabilized elite clones that are kept by Sweet Seeds for a long time in their bank of mothers. Some of this elite clones are the same used since 1998 and Sweet Seeds breeders keep them since then so their stability is more than tested now.

Then a small % of their genetic "complexity" comes from the autoflowering seeds but as I first said the breeders worked to only get the autoflowering trait out of them, so you can assume that Green Poison F1 Fast Version with be the exact same thing and as stable as the Green Poison ("normal" version) that comes from a trully stabilized elite clones that is kept in the Sweet Seeds bank of mothers.

I'm not sure if it sounds quite strange, or unique, to you, but if so that's absolutely normal as no other seedbank has done it before, so it's probably the first time you read about it.

See you around, kind regards and sweet smokes!!

tommy

www.sweetseeds.es

Registrován: May 2013
Příspěvků: 9  

Thank you very much, you cleared a lot of confusion for me.

I completelly forgot about the role of feminisation. I guess with a great clone feminised, the stability of next generation should be no issue.

I know we are offtopic, its just that I would love understanding the overall genetics behind breeding better and the info is sparse and confused, terms misused, all that.
I am not giving up, I have some dense books, so hopefully, I will find what I am looking for.

I do not want to waste your time, the amount of questions I would have is too great. It would have been easier for you to write a book.

But if you, or anyone close to you would like to, and find the time to share some interesting experiences about your work, I would be happy to translate into czech. Its very exciting for outsiders to learn such things and contemplate the implications, and how you could use the knowledge, you know. Also I think the knowledge helps the customers to appreciate what they are working with.

So only the best to you and thank again

Registrován: Nov 2011
Příspěvků: 451 

Ok Rebar, you're welcome

If we come up with any article in english regarding genetics and breeding I'll post it here in our subforum.

But yes, basically, at Sweet Seeds, everything is made using feminized clones. And to get feminized polen the female flowers are "treated" with silver thiosulphate which "transforms" female flowers into male flowers without adding any sort of hermafroditic genes, so the polen is 100% female and later on this polen is used on 100% female flowers which guarantees 99,7% feminized seeds (the other 0,3% will be males and not hermafrodites as some usually think).

See you around, sweet smokes!

tommy

www.sweetseeds.es

Registrován: May 2013
Příspěvků: 9  

for anyone interested in the subject, the best intro into basic genetics of cannabis I found is by Chimera in Jorge Cervantes book Marijuana Horticulture Growing Indoors and Outdoors. Chimera seems to have a firm grasp on the practice and on the science of it. You can download it, but its the book that seems it would really be handy to have a copy of for a quick reference. IMHO.

By far the most fun book on making seeds in your garden is "Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties: The Gardener's & Farmer's Guide to Plant Breeding & Seed Saving" By Carol Deppe. Some info on outcrossers, not much though. Lots of info on breeding strategies in limited space and time. Its tremendous fun to read. Beautifull book in itself.

So good luck to you all in your gene recombinations May you fenotype be always superior.

Registrován: Nov 2011
Příspěvků: 451 

Hi again Rebar!

Thank you very much for sharing this information around here. I'll have a look into the books you mention when I have a chance.

All good my friend, keep passing by and Sweet smokes!

tommy

www.sweetseeds.es